Suchergebnisse

On April 25, 2013, UN's Security Council established a 12,600-strong peacekeeping force for Mali. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) is to take over and continue the security and stabilization task that the French-led military operation in cooperation with UN's African-led International Support Mission to Mali, AFISMA, initiated in January 2013. The aim of this report is to present a number of long- and short-term perspectives for the recently initiated peace- and state-building process in Mali by focusing on the historical, structural and political causes of the crisis in Mali. Understanding these causes and handling their derived conflict potentials provide a minimum of prerequisites for establishing long-term peace. The report is structured according to four intertwined conflict potentials: Mali's fragile state, the status and background of the Tuareg rebellion, the organized crime and the regional cooperation. .

Folkemordet i Srebrenica i juli 1995 opprørte en hel verden. Siden 1992, da krigen brøt ut, hadde Bosnia-Hercegovina vært under internasjonalt oppsyn. Artikkelen drøfter hvordan folkemord og grove krigsforbrytelser kunne foregå i årevis uten å bli stanset. Fokus er på den rolle de internasjonale faktorene spilte – FN, EU, Nato og stormaktene. Hvorfor var det så stor motstand mot bruk av makt? Delvis kan det ha vært på grunn av manglende forståelse av hva som skjedde, en oppfatning av at Balkan var preget av århundregammelt hat. Noen vestlige land hadde sine egne interesser i området. For vestlige politikere var det enkleste ikke å gjøre noe. FN sendte fredsbevarende styrker til et land i krig, noe som var katastrofalt for styrkene selv og for FNs prestisje. De tiltakene som ble satt i verk, som Sikkerhetsrådets resolusjoner, økonomiske sanksjoner, våpenembargo, FN-sikrede områder og flyforbud, førte ikke til at krigshandlingene avtok. Også mange norske politikere var sterkt imot militær inngripen. Den serbiske hæren var for sterk, en militær løsning var ikke mulig. Dette viste seg å være feil. Folkemordet i Srebrenica fikk FN og Nato til å gå inn for maktbruk i september 1995. En begrenset militær aksjon var nok til å få slutt på krigen, og reelle fredsforhandlinger kunne begynne.
Abstract in English: Srebrenica 25 Years After – How Could the Genocide Happen?
The genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995 shocked the world. Since 1992, when the war broke out, Bosnia and Herzegovina had been supervised by the international community. The article discusses why genocide and crimes against humanity could happen without being stopped. Focus is on the role of the relevant international participants, the UN, the EU, NATO and the great powers. Why was there a strong opposition against use of force? It was partly due to weak understanding of what was going on, a concept of the Balkans as a region of inherent centuries-old hatred. Some Western states had their own interests in the region. For Western politicians the easiest way was to do nothing. The UN sent peacekeepers to a country at war, which turned out to be a catastrophe for the peacekeepers and for the prestige of the UN. Measures like Security Council resolutions, economic sanctions, arms embargo, safe havens and no-fly zones did not work. Many Norwegian politicians were strongly opposed to military intervention. The Serbian army was too strong, a military solution was not possible. This turned out to be wrong. The genocide in Srebrenica triggered the use of force by the UN and NATO in September 1995. A limited military action was enough to end the war, after which real peace talks could start.

The regional powerhouse, South Africa, has since the introduction of the nonracial democratic dispensation in 1994, played a central and important role in the formation of both the regional and continental security architecture. With the establishment of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 1992, one of the central areas of collaboration for the community was envisioned to be security, understood within a broadened human security framework. Security was therefore from the outset one of the cornerstones of integration in the SADC. It was believed that the formation of a security community would help dismantle the enmities that had plagued regional relations during the apartheid era. For some parties, institutionalisation of relations pointed to a means of stabilising and disseminating a particular order. Such institutions depict the power relations prevailing at the time of their establishment, which, however, can change over time (Cox 1981:136). The integration ambition surrounding security correlated with the ambitions of South Africa, the new democratic government in the regional powerhouse. South Africa and its overall foreign policy ambitions desired the pursuit of peace, democracy and stability for economic growth and development in the region and within South Africa itself. Since South Africa's acceptance into the SADC in 1994, the organisation has attempted to set up the required institutional framework to enable co-operation on security, both in terms of narrow military co-operation and regarding designated 2 softer security issues, such as migration and cross-border crime. The military cooperation moved forward in the early years after 1994 with the 1996 decision of creating an Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (OPDSC)1 and later the signing of the Mutual Defence Pact (MDP) in 2003, and eventually the creation of the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO) in 2004, which operationalised the OPDSC (SADC 2004). However, the actual military cooperation, e.g. military exercises, came close to a standstill. Several developments obstructed military co-operation of which the evolving crisis in Zimbabwe and the subsequent withdrawal of donor support to, for instance, the Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre (RPTC) in Harare are but two examples. The RPTC constituted the backbone of the co-operation, but political differences between member states illustrated during the Zimbabwean crisis and following the mandate of the interventions in especially the DR Congo and partly Lesotho in 1998 all contributed to regional tensions.2 Despite the crisis, SADC members, and in particular South Africa, declared that the organisation would be able to form a regional stand-by brigade for the use of the African Union (AU) as part of its wider security architecture. On 17 August 2007, the SADC declared its stand-by-force operational at a large parade in Lusaka, Zambia and at the same occasion signed a memorandum of understanding on the SADCBRIG (SADC 2007). According to the timeline provided by the AU, the brigade should be fully operational by June 2010. Former South African deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad stated after the launch that this was an important step, but that now there was much to be done securing joint levels and types of training, interoperability, etc. (Pahad 2007). The question that continues to linger is to what extent this brigade is operational and for what purpose. Is this new regional military formation in its present form just a paper tiger, or is it "real progress" and an example of "successful" regional cooperation and integration? This article scrutinises the security co-operation and integration in SADC and asks whether an apparent lack of common values between SADC member states are blocking the security integration process, the creation of a security community, and thereby the establishment of an effective stand-by brigade, the so-called SADCBRIG. The article furthermore attempts to scrutinise the role played by South Africa in establishing the SADCBRIG.